nc://standing

Standing: earned trust for the agent's calls. A Nodecode rewrite of percyhendrux123-prog/hermes-standing by percyhendrux123-prog.

An actor has a level. The level decides what runs without asking; a check the cell ran itself is what raises it. What it lets through without asking the operator:

A call below the level it needs puts a question up — Allow once, or Deny — and runs only on Allow once. Nobody there to ask is the same refusal.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the standing cell", or run nodecode add nc://standing.

Set it up

Nothing is required: the cell starts at L1, and /standing and the log work from the first run. To make it earn its keep, set in ~/.nodecode/config.jsonc (or in /settings, on the Settings tab) the members it reads:

{
  "standing": {
    "workspace": "/absolute/path/to/your/work",
    "file_proof_roots": ["/absolute/path/to/artifacts"],
    "http_proof_targets": ["http://127.0.0.1:8000/health"],
    "command_allowlist": ["git status --short"],
    "promote_after": 10,
    "max_auto_level": "L2"
  }
}

workspace is the folder whose writes count as local. file_proof_roots is what a file proof may read (empty uses the workspace; with neither, no file is read, and a credential store is never read). http_proof_targets are URL prefixes an http proof may fetch, a trailing slash allowing a subtree; empty refuses every fetch. command_allowlist holds exact read-only command lines a command proof may run. promote_after is how many passing checks in a row raise the level by one, up to max_auto_level; only /standing set gives L3. config.example.jsonc carries every member, commented.

Use it

Ask the agent to prove what it claims:

standing_proof(kind: "file",    target: "/work/build/app.zip", expect: "3f9a…c1")   ; a sha256, or a text inside
standing_proof(kind: "http",    target: "http://127.0.0.1:8000/health", expect: "ok")
standing_proof(kind: "command", target: "git status --short", expect: "")            ; one allowlisted line

The cell runs the check itself — it never takes the model's word for a result — and the record counts it: a pass earns one point and a proof handle, enough passes raise the level by one, and a completed check that does not match lowers it by one. A check that could not run (no roots, a missing file, a command nobody allowlisted) earns nothing and costs nothing. Do not put secrets in a target or an expected result: the record keeps a hash of the check, not its text.

The operator's own word:

/standing                                  the table: actor, level, passes, fails, last event
/standing log default                     the last twenty events
/standing set default L3 the owner said so sets a level, and only here

Model-facing functions, through eval: (standing:proof "file" "/work/out.txt" "done"), (standing:status). (help :standing) carries the same text while the cell runs.

The record lives in the nodecode home (standing/ledger.sexp) unless ledger names another file. It holds one row per actor and the events, and nothing of a call's arguments beyond a hash.

What it does not do

The original gates Hermes's own tool names and blocks a kanban card's completion without a proof. Nodecode has one tool, eval, so this rewrite reads the form a call evaluates — the command its sh runs, the path a write names — and gates on that; and the completion gate becomes proof_before, a list of tool names that need a passing proof in the session first.